This past weekend we loaded up the “Little House on the Highway” aka our Lance 1995 travel trailer and got out of town. I had made another reservation at a Thousand Trails resort trying to get some mileage out of the one year membership I had purchased. I decided on Morgan Hill RV Resort. We wanted to stay close by as Cristy’s mother is aging and we need to be able to get home in a hurry. It’s a short drive over the Diablo Range to get there. About a two hour trip with a trailer in tow. Traffic cooperated and we had no freeway adventures getting there.

We arrived around noon and checked in. It was made easy by the new online check in they are doing now. You show up, give them your name and off you go to begin the great site hunt. THIS is one of my big problems with Thousand Trails (TT). They do not let you reserve specific camp sites. You drive around, find one that’s available and park. We hate the uncertainty of not knowing where we are going within the park. Not knowing which sites are cramped or spacious. We like knowing exactly where we are going. However, the flip side of the coin is you can pick your neighbors.

We drove past a fairly cramped portion of the park and when I would ask Cristy, “What about this spot?” She would noncommittally indicate that maybe we should keep going. Glad I listed because we finally came across a site that was perfect. It was huge width-wise and deep enough that I could leave the truck hitched if I wanted to. Plus we already had neighbors and they seemed pretty quiet. We had already passed up a few areas where there were about 10 people sitting out front of their RV, 5 cars crammed into the site, listening to loud ranchero music. Really? Who comes out to nature and then blares their radio? Seriously, you’re music is not that awesome.

Happily we couldn’t hear their music down where we were. We heard only birds and the occasional ground squirrel chattering angrily. As we were setting up though we had our one and only downside of the vacation. It ended up being very minor but we weren’t sure at first. After I had hooked up our water hose I stepped inside to find Cristy looking under the bathroom sink. She said that’s not something she normally does but for some reason this time she did and how lucky we were that she did! There was a light stream of water squirting from one of the plumbing fittings under the sink!

Oy. I already had a headache from the drive. Now this. I turned off the water and thought maybe the water connection was just loose. As I first loosened it and then was tightening it again I noticed that adjacent to this fitting there was a shutoff valve for JUST this fitting. I closed the valve and turned the water back on to the trailer. SUCCESS! The leak had stopped. This was fitting that plumbed hot water to the outdoor shower. A feature on the trailer we have never used. With no more leaks our camp out was saved. I finally sat down and ate the sandwich Cristy had made me while I was investigating the leak. Then, FINALLY, we were able to truly relax and enjoy our camp site.

The weather was perfect, daytime highs of 82F (28C) and nighttime lows of 52F (11C). We spent the remainder of the afternoon lounging outside and then napping in the trailer. We also took a short walk around the park just to see what was there. There was a nice little creek near by called Uvas Creek. Uvas is grapes in Spanish and it was aptly named as there are a lot of wineries in the area.

The next day we drove into downtown Gilroy and looked around. There wasn’t much to see as most of the business are closed due to the Covid.

We decided to head over to Phil’s Fish Market in Moss Landing. Cristy got an order of cioppino and two oysters, I got a salmon sandwich and a cup of clam chowder. After getting our food we dove to down the street to Moss Landing State Beach. I flipped down the tailgate of my truck and we sat down and ate. Cristy discovered that they had forgotten her oysters and my clam chowder. We finished lunch and then walked back down the beach to Phil’s and they corrected the mistake quickly and without question. We walked back to the truck and decided to save these items for later. We headed back to the campground and read and relaxed for the rest of the day.

Saturday was our last full day camping and we decided to spend it in the campground with no day trips. This was like heaven to me. We took a couple walks around the park and read and watched movies we had downloaded. I also broke out my Blackstone Griddle and cooked BBQ’d chicken and onions for dinner. It turned out pretty good!

That was pretty much our camping trip for this month. We packed up the next morning, dumped our wastewater tanks, and then drove home. This was probably the closest we have come to a perfect camp out and we can’t wait to go camping again!

Post Script:

This will most likely be our last Thousand Trails visit. Given the caliber of people we have run into at these parks, the lax enforcement of park rules, and the hit and miss friendliness of staff at these parks, we have elected to let our yearly pass lapse and just stay in regular paid RV resorts. The customers are generally more likely to follow rules. The resorts are also generally kept up better. Thousand Trails bills themselves as “nature preserves”. And so pass off a lot of the lack of maintenance as “rustic”. Now, they are trying to update their facilities but at this point in time the parks in California are pretty run down. That all being said, for now, we are done with TT.